Eligibility for parental leave in EU Member States

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Acknowledgements

This report is based on the final report on eligibility for parental leave in the EU Member States (contract No EIGE/2018/OPER/10) prepared by: Prof. Margaret O’Brien (University College London), Prof. Sara Connolly (University of East Anglia), Dr Matthew Aldrich (University of East Anglia), Kelly Ward (University College London) and Merve Uzunalioglu (University College London).

Important contributions to the analysis were provided by: Davide Barbieri, Jakub Caisl, Simon Carpentier, Dr Marre Karu, Blandine Mollard, Vytautas Peciukonis, Dr Jolanta Reingardė and Dr Lina Salanauskaitė from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).

The report authors are grateful for the specialist country-level advice from International Network on Leave Policies and Research expert members and other parental-leave scholars: Fred Deven and Laura Merla (BE), Tatyana Kotzewa (BG), Jirina Kocourkova (CZ), Sonja Blum (DE), Lotte Bloksgaard and Tine Rostgaard (DK), Daniel Erler and Thordis Reimer (DE), Katre Pall (EE), Michael Rush and

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020

Print MH-02-19-002-EN-C ISBN: 978-92-9482-377-9 doi:10.2839/885266 PDF MH-02-19-002-EN-N ISBN: 978-92-9482-376-2 doi:10.2839/919049 © European Institute for Gender Equality, 2020

Cover image: © Martin Novak/Shutterstock.com

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged, the original meaning is not distorted and EIGE is not liable for any damage caused by that use. The reuse policy of EIGE is implemented by the Commission Decision of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (2011/833/EU).

Tel. +370 52157444 Email: eige.sec@eige.europa.eu http://www.eige.europa.eu http://twitter.com/eurogender http://www.facebook.com/eige.europa.eu http://www.youtube.com/eurogender http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu https://www.linkedin.com/company/eige/ Mary Daly (IE), Evi Hatzivarnava-Kazassi and Maria Karamessini (EL), Gerardo Meil, Anna Escobedo and Irene Lapuerta (ES), Daniele Boyer, Jeanne Fagnani and Olivier Thévenon (FR), Ivana Dobrotic (HR), Dino Giovannini, Tindara Addabbo, Valentina Cardinali and Sara Mazzucchelli (IT), Natālija Pīlipa (LV), Ruta Braziene and Giedre Purvaneckiene (LT), Marie Valentova, Nevena Zhelyazkova and Marianne Loutsch (LU), András Gabós and Márta Korintus (HU), Frances Camilleri-Cassar (MT), Laura den Dulk and Mara Yerkes (NL), Eva-Maria Schmidt, Andrea Schmidt, Christiane Rille-Pfeiffer and Helene Dearing (AT), Anna Kurowska, Barbara Godlewska and Piotr Michoń (PL), Karin Wall and Mafalda Leitão (PT), Alexandra Macht and Raluca Popescu (RO), Nada Stropnik (SI), Daniel Gerbery (SK), Johanna Lammi-Taskula, Petteri Eerola and Minna Salmi (FI), Ann-Zofie Duvander, Linda Haas and Philip Hwang (SE) and Alison Koslowski (UK).

A special thanks goes to Ann-Zofie Duvander, Alison Koslowski and Peter Moss for their invaluable guidance and feedback.

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is an autonomous body of the European Union established to strengthen gender equality across the EU. Equality between women and men is a fundamental value of the EU and EIGE’s task is to make this a reality in Europe and beyond. This includes becoming a European knowledge centre on gender equality issues, supporting gender mainstreaming in all EU and Member State policies, and fighting discrimination based on sex. European Institute for Gender Equality, EIGE Gedimino pr. 16

LT-01103 Vilnius LITHUANIA

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Eligibility for Parental Leave

in EU Member States

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Foreword

Parental leave is an important policy measure for supporting work–life balance. When both parents are eligible for parental leave, it can also contribute to a more equal sharing of car-ing and household responsibilities, which is good for gender equality.

Across Europe, we are witnessing a number of work-related, demographic and cultural trends, which make eligibility for parental leave more rel-evant than ever. Women are continuing to enter the workforce in growing numbers, temporary and short-term employment contracts are rising, birth rates are low and families are diversifying. Parental leave is crucial to sustain both women’s employment and population growth in the Euro-pean Union. Without the protection of paid leave or job security while on parental leave, women might drop out of the labour market to care for young children. Potential parents might even reconsider having a child. Parental leave is also important for men who are otherwise un-likely to take time off work to care for their new-born. When men take up parental leave, it helps them to engage more in this new phase of their family life and share caring responsibilities more equally.

In the European Union, there is a growing trend in short-term contracts and self-employment

options, which offer less security and stability than traditional forms of employment. They are also having an impact on eligibility for parental leave in some countries. Zero-hour contracts related to the gig economy are especially preva-lent among young people with lower education. Potential parents in these precarious situations might find themselves ineligible for parental leave.

Just as work arrangements are changing, so too are family arrangements. Parental-leave policies need to be adjusted to fit diverse family types. For a more inclusive Europe, single-parent fam-ilies, adoptive famfam-ilies, mixed families and LGBTQI+ families need to be covered under parental-leave schemes.

With a new directive on work–life balance for parents and carers in place, Member States need to start thinking about how to imple-ment more inclusive social-protection meas-ures. I firmly believe that our research will assist Member States with this important task and ul-timately contribute to a better work–life balance and more equality for all families in the Europe-an Union.

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Abbreviations

Member State abbreviations

BE Belgium BG Bulgaria CZ Czechia DK Denmark DE Germany EE Estonia IE Ireland EL Greece ES Spain FR France HR Croatia IT Italy CY Cyprus LV Latvia LT Lithuania LU Luxembourg HU Hungary MT Malta NL Netherlands AT Austria PL Poland PT Portugal RO Romania SI Slovenia SK Slovakia FI Finland SE Sweden UK (1₎ _{United Kingdom}

(1_{) The data collection and analysis, as well as the preparation of this publication were carried out in 2018-2019, when United Kingdom}

was still a Member State of the European Union.

(2_{) In this report, we opted for using the initialism LGBTQI+ as it represents the most inclusive umbrella term for people whose sexual}

orientation differs from heteronormativity and/or whose gender identity falls outside binary categories.

Frequently used abbreviations

Eurofound European Foundation for the

Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

EU-LFS European Union labour force

survey

EU-SILC European Union statistics on income and living conditions

ILO International Labour Organization

LGBTQI+ (2₎_{Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,} queer or questioning and intersex

LP&R International Network on Leave Policies and Research

OECD Organisation for Economic

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Contents

List of figures

Figure 1: Percentage of women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental

leave, 2016 18

Figure 2: Percentage of women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental

leave by reason for ineligibility, 2016 19

Figure 3: Percentage of employed women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory

parental leave, 2016 20

Figure 4: Percentage of employed women and men not eligible for statutory parental

leave by age group, 2016 21

Figure 5: Percentage of employed women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory

parental leave by level of education, 2016 22

Figure 6: Percentage of employed women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental leave by occupation (service and sales workers, elementary workers, skilled

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Contents

List of tables

Table 1: Parental-leave policies, 2016, selected for simulation 10 Table 2: Typology of eligibility conditions for parental leave in EU Member States 12 Table 3: Employment-related eligibility conditions for parental-leave policies, 2016 13 Table 4: Eligibility for parental-leave policies according to family/individual situation, 2016 16

Table 5: Key variables of interest used for the analysis 27

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Introduction

(3₎ _{https://www.leavenetwork.org}

(4_{) Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers}

and repealing Council Directive 2010/18/EU. Retrieved from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1158/oj (5_{) Eurostat (lfsi_pt_a)}

Parental leave is a policy measure intended to give both parents an equal opportunity to spend time caring for a young child, usually af-ter maaf-ternity leave (3_{). While parental leave} of-ten comes with benefits, its main purpose is to provide job protection for parents of young chil-dren — that is, the right of parents to be absent from work for childcare reasons without losing their job. As such, it is one of the most import-ant policy tools to promote not only work–life balance for parents but also gender equality. Since the responsibility of caring for children in most EU countries falls disproportionately on women (EIGE, 2019), the availability to everyone of a good leave policy is essential for support-ing women’s employment and gender equality in the labour market.

The first global form of paid leave from employ-ment was introduced in 1919 under the auspices of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention (ILO, 2014). This female-focused measure was concerned with the health and safety of employed women just before and after childbirth. Subsequently, the late 20th and early 21st centuries have wit-nessed an expansion of various forms of leave for women and men, as managing a healthy work–life balance has become more and more difficult, especially as more mothers are return-ing to paid employment in their child’s first year (Moss and Deven, 2015). Currently, all EU Mem-ber States have some form of parental-leave policy, although the different leave schemes across Europe vary greatly in aspects such as duration, payment schemes and eligibility rules. Despite Europe’s diversity in terms of welfare models, it displays some homogeneity when compared to other world regions with respect to more generous and well-compensated leave systems for both mothers and fathers. Along-side maternity/paternity leave and early

child-hood education and care support, parental leave is an important policy tool to facilitate the continued labour-market participation of women and men when they have children. Its availability signals the possibility of combining parenthood with employment to those who may be anticipating parenthood (Osiewalska, 2018). According to the directive on work–life balance for parents and carers (4_{), EU Member States} can make the right to parental leave conditional on a period-of-work qualification or on a length-of-service qualification. This study aims to pro-vide an overview of eligibility rules for parental leave in the EU and to analyse how they affect different groups of potential parents. The re-sults show that 17 Member States set qualifica-tion criteria related to duraqualifica-tion of employment. Seven Member States do not provide parental leave to self-employed people and 11 Member States do not allow same-sex parents to take leave.

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Introduction

countries where eligibility for support for work– life balance is dependent on strict conditions based on narrow definitions of employment, it is likely that there will be growing inequalities and divisions between citizens and workers with and without access to the benefits of paid leave provided by a strong social-protection infra-structure (Dobrotić and Blum, 2019).

Changes in gender roles and family formation provide a further rationale to assess eligibility for support for work–family reconciliation. The rise in female education levels and the con-comitant increase in female employment rates, coupled with the decline of the male-bread-winner-family model, have unsettled traditional gender work roles and expectations (Connolly, Aldrich, O’Brien, Speight and Poole, 2016; Trask, 2009). In this context, entitlements to job-pro-tected leave after childbirth have become an important policy measure to support parents (ILO, 2014). As the labour-market activation of women and men, and particularly of women of child-bearing age, has become more salient in policy, so too has paid parental leave become more relevant.

The fact that family arrangements have diversi-fied adds to the complexity. Historically, policies have been formulated for and oriented towards the traditional nuclear family; now, they need to be adjusted to accommodate single-parent fam-ilies, adoptive families and reconstituted families (European Commission, 2019). In addition, there is the new context of increased awareness of LGBTQI+ individuals and families and of wheth-er work–family policies are sufficiently inclusive or whether they are restricted to heterosexual couples (OECD, 2019; Valfort, 2017).

(6_{) LP&R consists of over 60 members, all of whom are experts on leave issues and come from 45 countries across the world. More}

information about the network can be found here: https://www.leavenetwork.org/introducing-the-network

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Methodology

1. Methodology

(7_{) Eurostat (demo_find).}

Tracking rates of eligibility for parental leave is rare, and data on real-time use of leave is not always available (Koslowski, 2019). However, knowledge of eligibility requirements for leave can be ascertained and population-level esti-mates examined through simulation modelling. This micro-level approach was successfully ad-opted in an earlier study of access to paid mater-nity and patermater-nity leave in the United Kingdom, which highlighted eligibility constraints related to both gender and employment (O’Brien, Con-nolly, Aldrich, Cook and Speight, 2017).

The approach taken for this analysis was to calculate eligibility for paid and unpaid paren-tal leave for women and men in each Member State using a random sample from high-qual-ity survey data from Eurostat (LFS and EU-SILC). The first stage involved the selection of the target parental-leave policy for each of the Member States and detailed mapping of the el-igibility rules. This was followed by the second stage, whereby policy rules with regard to eligi-bility were applied to nationally representative data sets for all EU-28 Member States using mi-crosimulation. This allowed for the identification of all those who would be eligible for parental leave at the time of the survey according to the parental-leave-policy rules of the country of res-idence if they had a newborn child.

A simulation of eligibility for parental leave was carried out for the population aged 20-49, de-fined as ‘potential parents’. Everybody who fell within the selected age group was included irre-spective of their employment status. This makes it possible to capture how eligibility is linked to employment criteria and to assess whether un-employed and economically inactive women and men are also eligible for (paid) parental leave. Furthermore, the population aged 20-49 typi-cally represents the group of individuals at the peak of both their employment and their fertility.

The focus on the population aged 20-49 is due to a few considerations. The majority of peo-ple in the EU will have had their first child by the age of 49 years (7_{). Although fertility rates} are higher after the age of 24 years, and high-est between 29 and 31 years, a small group of people in the EU do have children in their early twenties (Eurostat, 2019). The younger age cat-egory of 20-24 years is therefore included to in-vestigate young Europeans’ access to parental leave. Furthermore, this group may be less likely to accumulate time spent in a job or the tenure requirements needed to access parental leave, and therefore more detailed analytical atten-tion needs to be paid to the prevailing eligibility rates and potential reasons for ineligibility. In short, the focus on ‘potential parents’ enables simulation analysis that goes beyond employed individuals who have had a child in the previous year, to a larger group in the prime of their eco-nomic activity and who may wish to have chil-dren (irrespective of whether they already have children or not).

The methodological approach used to select the statutory parental-leave policies, alongside an overview of the eligibility constraints identi-fied in each EU Member State, is presented be-low. More details about actual microdata used and underlying assumptions of the simulations are provided in Annex 1.

1.1. Selection of statutory

parental leave

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Methodology

Table 1: Parental-leave policies, 2016, selected for simulation

MS _{parental-leave policy identified}Name (in original language) of available to a family Total duration (months) Income-replacement level BE Ouderschapsverlof/Congé parental 8 2 BG Oтпуск за отглеждане на дете до 2-годишна възраст 24 2 CZ Rodičovskaá dovolená 36 2 DK Forældreorlov 11.1 3 DE Elternzeit 24 3 EE Lapsehoolduspuhkus/vanemahüvitis 36 3 IE Saoire do thuismitheoirí 8.4 1 EL Άδεια χωρίς αποδοχές 120 1

ES Excedencia por cuidado de hijos 36 1

FR Congé parental 36 2

HR Roditeljski dopust 8 3

IT Congedo Parentale 10 2

CY Γονική άδεια 8 1

LV Bērna kopšanas pabalsts 18 2

LT Vaiko priežiuros atostogos 36 2

LU Congé parental 12 3

HU Gyermekgondozást segítő ellátás 36 2

MT Leave tal-Ġenituri 8 1

NL Ouderschapsverlof 12 1

AT Elternkarenz 24 3

PL Urlop Rodzicielski 7.4 3

PT Licença parental complementar 6 3

RO Concediul parental/pentru cresterea copilului 24 3

SI Starševski Dopust 8.6 3

SK Rodičovská dovolenká 36 2

FI Vanhempainvapaa/föräldraledighet 6.1 3

SE Föräldraförsäkring 18 3

UK Parental leave 8.3 1

Source: Koslowski et al., 2016.

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Methodology

to make it transferable’ (8_{). The main guiding} principle for selecting the parental-leave policy in each country was that it had to be gender neutral, as distinct from maternity leave (grant-ed only to women/mothers/primary caregivers) or paternity leave (granted to men/fathers/sec-ondary caregivers). In the light of differences in national policies, the selected parental-leave policy is the one that immediately follows ma-ternity or pama-ternity leave and thus allows par-ents to take care of very small children (e.g. un-der 1 year old).

For identification of parental-leave policies in Member States, the LP&R cross-country annu-al review (Koslowski, Blum and Moss, 2016) was used as the main data source. Each country re-port (9_{) in the LP&R annual review has a section} on eligibility conditions for parental leave. To ensure a full understanding of the local context along with cross-national comparability of se-lected parental-leave policies, LP&R national ex-perts guided the selection at country level, pro-viding policy contextualisation, leave definitions and details of entitlements and constraints. Any gaps identified as regards policy specificities were cross-checked with the Mutual Informa-tion System on Social ProtecInforma-tion database (10₎ and government primary sources.

(8_{) Council Directive 2010/18/EU of 8 March 2010 implementing the revised Framework Agreement on parental leave concluded by}

BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME, CEEP and ETUC and repealing Directive 96/34/EC. Retrieved from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriS-erv/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:068:0013:0020:en:PDF

(9_{) Please see:}_{https://www.leavenetwork.org/annual-review-reports/country-reports}

(10_{) Please see:}_{https://www.missoc.org}

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Eligibility conditions across the EU

2. Eligibility conditions across the EU

The current design of parental-leave policies across the EU gives various grounds for ineligibility, as re-viewed in Table 2. Broadly, these relate to the per-son’s position in the labour market, family-related criteria and citizenship. To establish a precise over-view of eligibility, a descriptive analysis of eligibility for each Member State was conducted.

It should nonetheless be noted that not all the identified reasons for ineligibility can be captured in the subsequent simulation analysis. For exam-ple, citizenship was explored but not included in the final simulation due to uneven levels of infor-mation on the policy conditions at country level. This implies that simulated eligibility rates might be lower in countries where citizenship-related criteria play a role, as the implemented simu-lation analysis currently discards this grounds for exclusion as a factor. Examples from LP&R experts revealed varying national practices. For example, in Slovakia, individuals who are living in the country with temporary or permanent resi-dency are eligible for parental leave. Finland re-quires non-EU nationals and migrant parents to have been living in the country for 180 days pri-or to the birth of the baby to be eligible. In Cro-atia, non-EU nationals and migrants, employed

by a Croatian employer, are entitled to parental leave. Unemployed non-citizens or migrants must have had health insurance and permanent residency for 3-5 years to be eligible to benefit from parental leave.

2.1. Employment-related

eligibility conditions

Employment status — that is, whether a person is employed, unemployed or inactive, whether they are an employee or self-employed, what sector they work in and their length of service — are noted as the main factors contributing to variability of eligibility for parental leave across the EU. Application of employment-related con-ditions for accessing parental leave is quite het-erogeneous across the EU (see Table 3).

For the majority of EU countries, being an em-ployee is an essential gateway to being eligible for parental leave and for any parental-leave financial benefits. Only seven EU Member States (BG, DK, HR, LT, PT, FI and SE) allow for parents who are

in-active or unemployed to be eligible, but still might

apply additional conditions linked to, for example, Table 2: Typology of eligibility conditions for parental leave in EU Member States

Conditions related to employment/labour-market situation: • Economic activity status (employed, unemployed, inactive) • Duration of contract (time with current employer)

• Type of employment (employee, self-employed) • Economic sector

Conditions related to family/household situation: • Heterosexual couples

• Same-sex couples • Lone parents • Adoptive parents

Conditions related to citizenship status: • Nationals (not simulated)

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insurance payments, which typically need to have been ongoing for at least 12 months. While peo-ple who are out of the labour market do not need job protection, they also do not benefit from this significant state-provided work–life balance mea-sure, which in most Member States offers signifi-cant financial support.

Across the remaining countries, all individuals who have an employee status are eligible for par-ental leave, though certain employment-related criteria can vary. For example, in 11 countries there is no condition related to length of service, implying that access to parental leave is not con-strained by time spent in employment or related social-insurance records (CZ, DE, EE, ES, HR, IT, LV, AT, PL, FI and SE). In the countries that do have such constraints, there is typically a requirement that the employee needs to have been employed for 1 year (in 11 countries), and in some cases in the same job without interruption (e.g. BE, IE, EL, LU, NL and UK). In several Member States, the reference period for the length of service is quite

flexible. For example, in Slovakia, the required 270 days of employment can be accumulated over a 2-year period. Similarly, Hungary requires a work record of 365 days within 2 years, but also allows for 180 days to be spent in education. The inclu-sion or excluinclu-sion of students from parental-leave schemes was not looked at in this study.

In terms of other categories of employment, in seven Member States (BE, IE, EL, ES, CY, AT and UK) self-employed parents are not eligi-ble for parental leave. In the remaining 21 EU Member States self-employed parents are eli-gible for parental leave, but there are still vari-ations in requirements related to the duration of self-employment and the sector in which self-employed parents are engaged. The con-ditions applied to the self-employed are usually equal to the conditions that apply to employ-ees (except in Denmark). In France and Malta, self-employed people do not have to fulfil con-ditions related to length of service, while em-ployees do.

Table 3: Employment-related eligibility conditions for parental-leave policies, 2016

(11_{) This condition is not captured in simulations — all unemployed/inactive people are considered to be ineligible.}

(12_{) Those in vocational training for > 18 months receive cash benefits/students receive extra 12 months’ educational benefits.}

(13_{) Estonia provides parental-leave benefits to all unemployed/inactive people, according to their previous taxable income (or the}

minimum level if there was no income).

Employment-related eligibility criteria MS

Unemployed/inactive

person Employee Self-employed person

Eligible _conditionsOther Eligible _{length of service/sector}Conditions related to Eligible _{length of service/sector}Conditions related to

BE No — Yes > 12 months No —

BG Yes Must have been insured for > 12 months (11₎

Yes > 12 months Yes > 12 months

CZ No — Yes None Yes None

DK Yes All unemployed/ inactive people are eligible for

leave (12₎

Yes 120 hours in 13 weeks preceding paid leave

Yes > 6 months

DE No — Yes None Yes None

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Unemployed/inactive

IE No — Yes > 12 months No —

EL No — Yes > 12 months No —

ES No (14₎ _— _Yes _None _No _—

FR No — Yes > 12 months Yes None

HR Yes Non-citizens/ migrants must have health insurance and be permanent residents (15₎

Yes None Yes None

IT No — Yes No condition based on length

of service, but excludes women and men who are domestic workers and home

helps

Yes (not all men)

Self-employed men in three sectors — commerce

(retailers), artisanal and agricultural — are not

eligible (16₎

CY No — Yes > 6 months No —

LV No — Yes None Yes None

LT Yes Must have

been making social security

payments for > 12 months

LU No — Yes > 12 months for at least

20 hours per week

Yes > 12 months for at least 20 hours per week

HU No — Yes > 12 months (may include

180 days in education)

Yes > 12 months (may include 180 days in education)

MT No — Yes > 12 months Yes None

NL No — Yes > 12 months Yes > 12 months

AT No — Yes None No —

PL No — Yes None Yes None

PT Yes Must be receiving unemployment

benefits

(14_{) Except in two regions — but for the purposes of the simulation, this regional variability is disregarded.}

(15_{) This condition is not simulated; all unemployed/inactive people are considered eligible for the purposes of the simulation.}

(16_{) The Italian system distinguishes between two types of self-employed people: (a) Liberi professionisti (self-employed people in}

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Unemployed/inactive

RO No — Yes > 12 months Yes > 12 months

SI No — Yes Must have social insurance

the day before the first day of the leave

Yes Must have social insurance the day before the first day

of the leave

SK No — Yes > 270 days Yes > 270 days

FI Yes Must have lived in Finland for > 180 days prior

to due date (17₎

Yes None Yes None

SE Yes None Yes None Yes None

UK No — Yes > 12 months No —

Source: Drawn up by authors, based on Koslowski et al., 2016; Spasova, Bouget, Ghailani and Vanhercke, 2017; Stropnik, Majcen and Prevolnik Rupel, 2017; Gerbery and Bednárik, 2017.

(17_{) This condition is not simulated; all unemployed/inactive people are treated as eligible.}

The employment sectors are generally treated equally, with the exception of Greece and Malta, where the public and private sectors have differ-ent rules, and Italy, where employees who are domestic workers and home helps are excluded from parental leave along with self-employed men in three sectors (commerce (retailers), ar-tisanal and agricultural). Only one country has a condition connected to working time: in Lux-embourg, only those who have worked at least 20 hours per week for the past 12 months are eligible for parental leave.

2.2. Household-related eligibility

conditions

Eligibility for parental leave across the EU is often linked not only to employment, but also to differ-ent aspects of the family’s composition or charac-teristics of the parents. Household-level eligibility criteria for parental leave, such as the relation-ship between the household members (i.e. same-sex or heterosame-sexual) and whether they are birth or adoptive parents, are presented in Table 4.

In all of the 28 Member States, lone parents are eligible for parental leave, although the eligibil-ity rights of non-resident mothers and fathers have not been included in the analysis in this study. Also, the study does not look into how lone mothers are treated in cases where there is an individual right to parental leave specif-ic to fathers (i.e. the ‘father’s quota’), but only into how they are treated in the gender-neutral part of the leave available to all parents.

Adoptive parents are eligible for parental leave in all EU Member States, with the exception of Portugal, which does not provide adoptive fathers an opportunity to take parental leave. Greece, Cyprus and Romania explicitly restrict the eligibility of adoptive parents only if they are not heterosexual.

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Table 4: Eligibility for parental-leave policies according to family/individual situation, 2016

MS Same-sex couples Adoptive parents Lone parents

BE Yes Yes Yes

BG Yes Yes Yes

CZ Yes Yes Yes

DK Yes Yes Yes

DE Yes Yes Yes

EE Yes Yes Yes

IE Yes Yes Yes

EL No Yes (*) Yes

ES Yes Yes Yes

FR Yes Yes Yes

HR No Yes Yes

IT Yes Yes Yes

CY No Yes (*) Yes

LV No Yes Yes

LT No Yes Yes

LU Yes Yes Yes

HU Yes Yes Yes

MT No Yes Yes

NL Yes Yes Yes

AT Yes Yes Yes

PL No Yes Yes

PT No Yes (women), No (men) Yes

RO No Yes (*) Yes

SI No Yes Yes

SK No Yes Yes

FI Yes Yes Yes

SE Yes Yes Yes

UK Yes Yes Yes

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Eligibility for parental leave in 2016: estimations for EU Member States

3. Eligibility for parental leave in 2016:

estimations for EU Member States

(18_{) In Estonia, parents cannot take parental leave at the same time as the other parent (the prevalence of this reason for ineligibility}

was not captured by the microsimulation). Finland requires non-EU nationals and migrant parents to have been living in the coun-try for 180 days prior to the birth of the baby to be eligible for parental leave (not simulated in the eligibility analysis).

(19_{) In Latvia and Poland, same-sex couples are not eligible for parental leave, but in Latvia this result was not captured by the}

micro-simulation due to a small sample size.

3.1. Overall eligibility: all

potential parents

The study provides a share of all potential par-ents (i.e. women and men aged 20-49, em-ployed or not) who met the eligibility crite-ria of the Member States where they lived in 2016, had they become parents at the time of the simulation. The findings show considerable variation across the EU Member States with re-spect to simulated eligibility for parental leave for women and men. In the EU, the most inclu-sive parental-leave schemes were found in three countries (EE, FI and SE), with nearly 100 % eligi-bility rates (18_{) for both women and men. In these} Member States, individuals were eligible for pa-rental leave regardless of whether they were employed, self-employed, unemployed or inac-tive and irrespecinac-tive of the length of time spent in their current job or the type of occupation; regardless of whether they were in a hetero-sexual or same-sex partnership or a single-par-ent household; and regardless of whether their child was biological or adoptive. Croatia also has a nearly 100 % eligibility rate in this analysis, even though it does not give access to same-sex couples — due to a small sample size of same-sex couples, this was not adequately captured in the analysis. In the remaining 24 Member States, ineligibility rates were significantly higher, with the highest ineligibility found in Greece, where 62 % of women and 51 % of men were ineligible. Ineligibility was also high in Ireland, Italy, Cyprus, Malta and the United Kingdom, particularly for women (see Figure 1).

Across the EU-28, a greater share of potential mothers than potential fathers is ineligible. In

fact, 34 % of women and 23 % of men aged 20-49 years do not have access to parental leave, creating a gender gap in overall eligibility for pa-rental leave of 11 percentage points (p.p.). The gender gap is greatest in Malta, where 43 % of potential mothers and 12 % of potential fathers are ineligible — a gender gap of 31 pp. Portugal is the only exception, where more men (32 %) than women (23 %) were ineligible for parental leave.

The gender difference in the eligibility rate for the total population is mostly caused by the gender differences in labour-market participa-tion. In the EU-28, unemployment or econom-ic inactivity is the main reason for ineligibility for parental leave (78 % of women and 54 % of men) (Figure 2). The other most common rea-sons for ineligibility are various employment conditions, such as length of service (15 % of women and 20 % of men), or self-employment (7 % of women and 26 % of men). Even though job protection is not relevant for people who are out of the labour market, these people also do not benefit from this important state-provided work–life balance measure, which in most coun-tries also offers financial support.

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Greece, Spain and Italy, accounting for nearly half of all men and about one fifth of all women who are not eligible. This is of note given that both Greece and Italy have the highest levels of self-employed women and men in the EU (Euro-stat, 2018). Insufficient length of employment was the key reason for ineligibility in France, Lithuania, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — all these countries require a 12-month length of service of parents for them to be eligible for parental leave.

Patterns of ineligibility are different for women and men. Inactivity or unemployment are more prevalent among women across the EU, while various employment-related conditions,

includ-ing length of service and self-employment, dis-advantage men. Conditions related to house-hold situations, such as whether same-sex couples are eligible for parental leave or wheth-er both parents can take parental leave at the same time, account for a low percentage of ineligibility (less than 1 % of women and men). However, 11 Member States have policy rules on eligibility where same-sex parents are not eligible for parental leave, with implications for adoptive parents from same-sex households. The rate of ineligibility of same-sex couples is underestimated in this study due to data re-strictions and therefore in reality the share of potential parents excluded for this reason is likely to be higher.

Figure 1: Percentage of women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental leave, 2016

Percentage Women Men 34 23 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 EL IT IE _UK _MT _CY _ES _LU _BG _FR _NL _HU EU-28 RO PL SK AT CZ LT LV DE SI PT BE DK EE FI HR SE

Higher among women * No gap Nearly full

population coverage Source: Authors’ calculation, EU-LFS, EU-SILC.

(*) Portugal is noted to be the only Member State where more men than women are ineligible for parental leave. NB: ‘EU-28’ represents the weighted average (population aged 20-49, EU-LFS 2016 (lfsa_pganws)).

NB: Member States are grouped by size of gender eligibility gap: ‘higher ineligibility’ refers to a gender gap higher than 1 pp; ‘no gap’ refers to a gender gap from – 1 to 1 pp; within the groups, Member States are sorted in descending order.

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Figure 2: Percentage of women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental leave by reason for ineligibility, 2016

Percentage

Unemployment or inactivity Self-employment Employment conditions Household characteristics

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Men WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen WomenMen Women DK LT UK NL LU BE CY IE EL FR AT BG EU-28 ES SK HU PT IT MT RO SI PL CZ DE LV

Source: Authors’ calculation, EU-LFS, EU-SILC.

NB: EE, HR, FI and SE are not included because these Member States have nearly 100 % eligibility rates.

NB: ‘Household characteristics’ includes two separate reasons for ineligibility: (i) same-sex couples are not eligible for parental leave and (ii) partners cannot take parental leave at the same time.

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3.2. Eligibility for potential

parents in employment

Since parental leave is a measure targeted at the employed population, it is important to look at the share of employed potential parents who would not have the opportunity to take leave and would therefore be without job protection and at risk of losing their job. Eligibility rates for parental leave among the EU-28 could be expected to be significantly higher among the employed than the unemployed or inactive, giv-en that the aim of the leave is to provide job protection and time off for working parents. On average in the EU, 10 % of employed women and 12 % of employed men were not eligible in 2016, ranging from 2 % and 3 % of employed women and men, respectively, in Lithuania, to 32 % and 37 % of employed women and men, respectively, in Greece (Figure 3). In nine

Mem-(20_{) In Estonia and Latvia, parents cannot take parental leave at the same time as the other parent. Finland requires non-EU nationals}

and migrant parents to have been living in the country for 180 days prior to the birth of the baby to be eligible for parental leave (not simulated in the eligibility analysis). In Croatia, Latvia, Poland and Portugal, same-sex couples are ineligible for parental leave. Due to small sample sizes, the prevalence of these reasons for ineligibility was not captured by the microsimulation.

ber States (CZ, DE, EE, HR, LV, PL, SI, FI and SE), nearly all employed women and men can access parental leave, as either there are no restrictive eligibility rules for the employed population or the eligibility restrictions exclude a rather small share of the population (20_).

For the economically active, there were eight countries (BG, DK, FR, LU, HU, MT, NL and SK) where a greater share of potential mothers than potential fathers were ineligible. In this group, the rates of ineligibility reach as high as 19 % of employed women and 17 % of employed men in Luxembourg, where anyone who has not worked for at least the last 12 months, for the same em-ployer, for at least 20 hours per week, is excluded. The lowest ineligibility rate was in Slovakia, where 6 % of employed women and 2 % of employed men were excluded, with less strict conditions on employment: only those who have not worked for Figure 3: Percentage of employed women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental leave, 2016 Percentage Women Men 1012 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 LU NL FR _BG _MT _HU DK SK EL _UK IE _CY _BE _ES EU-28 IT AT PT RO LT CZ DE EE FI HR LV PL SE SI

Higher among women Higher among men No gap Nearly full population coverage Source: Authors’ calculations, EU-LFS, EU-SILC.

NB: ‘EU-28’ represents the weighted average (population aged 20-49, EU-LFS 2016 (lfsa_pganws)).

NB: Member States are grouped by size of gender eligibility gap: ‘higher ineligibility’ refers to a gender gap higher than 1 pp; ‘no gap’ refers to a gender gap from – 1 to 1 pp; within the groups, Member States are sorted in descending order.

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at least 270 days in the last 2 years are exclud-ed. In Lithuania and Romania, less than 5 % of women and men in employment were ineligible and gender gaps in eligibility were very small. In the remaining nine countries, a greater share of potential fathers than mothers was ineligible (BE, IE, EL, ES, IT, CY, AT, PT and UK). In sever-al of these countries, the ineligibility rates are high because more than one eligibility condi-tion exists and self-employed women and men usually do not have access to parental leave (BE, IE, EL, ES, CY, AT and UK). For example, as many as 37 % of employed men and 32 % of employed women in Greece would not get pa-rental leave if they had a child because they ei-ther are self-employed, have not worked for at least 12 months or are living in same-sex cou-ples. Greece, together with Cyprus, is a coun-try where all three eligibility criteria apply (i.e. type of employment, length of employment and type of relationship). The lack of eligibility for parental leave of potential fathers may serve to reinforce traditional gender norms and the re-sulting childcare responsibilities, which in turn reinforce the disadvantaged position of women.

As a result, ineligibility needs to be considered one of the reasons behind low take-up of pa-rental leave by fathers.

The ineligibility rates vary between groups of employed women and men of different ages, lev-els of education, occupations and sectors of em-ployment. Such differences underline the impor-tance of assessing the impact of policy design in relation to these characteristics. Among the var-ious age cohorts, younger people are the least likely to be eligible for parental leave as they do not generally have sufficient records of continu-ous employment, and therefore might decide to postpone parenthood until the career-related el-igibility criteria are fulfilled. In six Member States, around 40 % of the youngest age group (20-24) were ineligible (BG, IE, EL, FR, NL and UK). In oth-er countries, the share of this age group that was ineligible was lower, but still substantial. For ex-ample, 25 % of potential mothers and 35 % of potential fathers aged 20-24 years in Belgium were ineligible. The only Member State where in-eligibility rates progressively increased with age was Austria, where self-employment is the only reason for ineligibility.

Figure 4: Percentage of employed women and men not eligible for statutory parental leave by age group, 2016

Age 20-24 Age 30-34 Age 40-44

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men

EL NL BG IE FR UK DK SK BE PT ES RO LT HU IT AT CY* LU* MT*

Percentage

NB: CY, LU, MT (women and men, 20-24) are not included due to a low number of observations. Data is of low reliability for women and men aged 20-24 in BG, EL, LT, SK; women aged 20-24 in HU; men aged 25-29 in LT. CZ, DE, EE, HR, LV, PL, SI, FI and SE are not included because these Member States have nearly 100 % eligibility rates for the employed population.

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In most Member States, there is not much differentiation by education, but in nine coun-tries ineligibility rates are highest for the low-est educated (BG, IE, EL, FR, IT, CY, HU, MT and PT). In Austria, ineligibility increases with edu-cation — 8 % of employed women and 9 % of employed men with lower education were in-eligible, while 9 % of women and 17 % of men with higher education were ineligible (Fig-ure 5). In Austria, only self-employed people are not eligible for parental leave; therefore, the eligibility rates reflect the overall distribu-tion of self-employed people between differ-ent levels of education.

Across the Member States, those working in ag-riculture, forestry and fishery (who are

general-ly, but not exclusivegeneral-ly, male and self-employed), and those in service and sales work (a more mixed gender profile and typically employed rather than self-employed) were least likely to be eligible. Access to parental leave was gener-ally better for employees in higher-skilled occu-pations than for lower-skilled and manual work-ers, but not in all Member States. Ineligibility among skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers was extremely high (more than 50 %) in Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Austria and the United Kingdom. The agricultural sec-tor is the most problematic in most countries as ineligibility in this sector is typically higher than in industry or the service sector, primarily due to the prevalence of self-employment and tem-porary contracts.

Figure 5: Percentage of employed women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental leave by level of education, 2016

Percentage 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Low education Medium education Higher education

Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men

EL BG CY IT UK IE NL BE FR HU MT LU ES DK AT RO PT LT SK

NB: SK women with lower education is not included due to low number of observations. Data is of low reliability for women and men with lower education in LT and for men with lower education in SK. CZ, DE, EE, HR, LV, PL, SI, FI and SE are not included because these Member States have nearly 100 % eligibility rates for the employed population.

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Figure 6: Percentage of employed women and men (aged 20-49) not eligible for statutory parental leave by occupation (service and sales workers, elementary workers, skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers), 2016

Percentage

Service and sales workers Elementary occupations Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men

EL UK LU CY IE BE ES NL FR DK BG MT AT PT HU LT RO IT

NB: IE (women, agricultural), CY (women and men, agricultural), LU (women and men, agricultural), MT (women and men, agricultural) and SK (women and men, agricultural) are not included due to a low number of observations. Data is of low reliability for BE (women, agricultural), BG (women, agricultural), DK (women, agricultural), LT (women, agricultural; men, service and agricultural), HU (women, agricultural), PT (women, agricultural), UK (women, agricultural).

NB: CZ, DE, EE, HR, LV, PL, SI, FI and SE are not included because these Member States have 100 % eligibility rates for the employed population.

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Conclusions

4. Conclusions

(21_{) In Estonia, parents cannot take parental leave at the same time as the other parent. Finland requires non-EU nationals and migrant}

parents to have been living in the country for 180 days prior to the birth of the baby to be eligible for parental leave (not simulated in the eligibility analysis). In Croatia, same-sex couples are not eligible for parental leave, but due to a small sample size, the micro-simulation did not capture this result.

Since the 1970s, the European region has led policy innovation with respect to parental leave. It is an important policy tool to support individ-uals as they embark on the transition to parent-hood and subsequently to enable parents to combine childcare with employment. In recent years, concern has heightened that employment insecurity may exclude some from the benefits of parental leave, reducing access to job-pro-tected childcare time or job-projob-pro-tected paid childcare time. Without these entitlements, the workers excluded, particularly women, are less likely to maintain labour-market engagement or a sustainable work–family balance between the responsibility of caring for young children and earning income for living. Moreover, ineligible workers are less likely to benefit from the con-siderable economic, health and social advantag-es associated with parental leave (Nandi et al., 2018).

This study has conducted a cross-country and intra-country analysis of eligibility for paid and unpaid statutory parental leave across the EU-28. High-quality survey data (EU-LFS and EU-SILC) was assessed to gauge the extent to which different population groups fulfilled the identified eligibility criteria for parental leave in each Member State. The analysis focused on ‘potential parents’, that is all people aged 20-49 years — the peak fertility and employment period.

The findings show considerable variation across the EU Member States with respect to simulat-ed eligibility for parental leave and multiple and varied reasons for ineligibility of women and men. Across the EU-28, the highest rates of eli-gibility for women and men were found in four countries (EE, HR, FI and SE) with nearly 100 % eligibility of women and men aged 20-49 (21_{). In} the remaining 24 Member States, the coverage

was not universal, with ineligibility rates rang-ing from just 5 % of women and 4 % of men in Denmark to 62 % of women and 51 % of men in Greece. Ineligibility rates were substantially lower among people in employment as, on av-erage, 10 % of employed women and 12 % of employed men were ineligible across the EU-28. As it was not possible to collect and simulate all EU-28 eligibility conditions, it is likely that the eligibility estimates present an optimistic sce-nario. Notable absences include eligibility con-ditions with regard to mobile populations (such as non-nationals) and to non-resident parents after separation and divorce. By 2014, the pro-portion of foreign-born people in the EU had reached 10 % and parental separation was af-fecting a growing number of European children (Eurostat, 2015).

The ineligible were more likely to be economi-cally inactive, in non-standard types of employ-ment, such as self-employemploy-ment, and to have been in their job for less than 12 months. These characteristics can signify insecure, unstable, uncertain and even precarious work–life tra-jectories typically associated with poor regula-tory protection. By contrast, those most likely to have access to the benefits of parental leave were the economically active, those with an em-ployee contract rather than the self-employed, and those with a length of service greater than 12 months.

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Conclusions

While providing flexibility and therefore bet-ter support for a work–life balance, non-stan-dard work also puts people in a precarious situation by excluding them from social poli-cies. Non-standard and new forms of work are a fast-growing trend in the labour market, mak-ing it urgently important to revisit social-protec-tion mechanisms, which are still designed for old and standard forms of work.

Historically, salaried employees, with standard employment contracts, benefit most from stat-utory social protection, such as parental-leave entitlements, through the process of building up entitlements and contributions to nation-al taxation and insurance systems (Spasova et al., 2017). However, schemes based on la-bour-market engagement or performance tend to assume a universal model of the male adult worker, paying insufficient attention to family caring responsibilities, which are most likely to be adopted by women. Historically, some Euro-pean countries compensated women for taking care of the family through long, low-paid cash-for-care entitlements, based on a universal fe-male-parenthood model (Dobrotić and Blum, 2017). Subsequently, many of these countries have moved towards shorter, well-paid

paren-(22₎_{https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/european-pillar-social-rights-booklet_en}

tal leave with incentives to increase take-up by fathers (e.g. Germany, Austria). This emergent alternative dual-earner/dual-caregiver model attempts to take account of both parents’, and not only mothers’, time spent caring for children along with their economic provisioning (Gornick and Meyers, 2008).

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Annex

(23₎_{https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/microdata/european-union-labour-force-survey}

(24₎_{https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/microdata/european-union-statistics-on-income-and-living-conditions}

(25_{) The employment definition used in EU-LFS closely follows the guidelines of the ILO, while an employment variable used in EU-SILC}

captures the person’s own perception of their main activity at present. It differs from the ILO concept to the extent that people’s own perception of their main status differs from the strict definitions drawn up by the ILO. More information on the differences between employment definitions can be found in the EU-LFS and EU-SILC user guides.

(26_{) When setting up the data sets, the guidance set out in Mack, Lengerer and Dickhaut, 2016 was followed.}

(27_{) When combining the files, the guidance set out in Mack et al., 2016 on how to merge the data and create partner data sets was}

followed.

Microdata sets used

for simulations

EU-LFS (23_{) and EU-SILC (}24_{) from the year 2016} were the two microdata sets used for simulat-ing eligibility for parental leave in the Member States, though priority was given to EU-LFS. This data set was used as the underlying simu-lation data in all but six (BG, EL, LT, HU, PT and SK), country cases. For these six countries, EU-LFS could not provide sufficient information to simulate existing parental-leave policies. More precisely, due to the cross-sectional nature of EU-LFS, it was not possible to capture informa-tion on non-continuous employment durainforma-tion or to assess the duration of social security con-tributions. Despite this disadvantage, EU-LFS was selected as the preferential data in other country cases due to the ‘employment’ defini-tion used in EU-SILC (25_{). It should still be} not-ed that both microdata sets still are not able to provide complete information for the purposes of parental-leave policy simulations across the EU. For example, besides the simulation restric-tions already listed in the footnotes of Table 3, neither data set includes information on the private–public sector distinction, pertinent for Greece and Malta as there are different statu-tory regimes for the public and private sectors (Blum et al., 2018).

Constructing a household-level data set

A household-level data set with information on the relationship between household members was needed for a number of countries. For

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Annex

Variables used to simulate eligibility

Variables used in the simulation exercise close-ly reflect the three main purposes of this study: (1) to estimate overall levels of ineligibility; (2) to

identify main reasons for ineligibility; (3) to es-timate levels of ineligibility among those in em-ployment. Table 5 provides a review of the exact variables used for the purposes of the simulation across both the EU-LFS and EU-SILC data sets. Table 5: Key variables of interest used for the analysis

EU-LFS EU-SILC Notes

Economic activity ILOSTAT (ILO work status)

PL031

(self-defined economic status)

In cases where EU-SILC data sets were used, responses were grouped accordingly to match the ILO definitions as recorded in EU-LFS. Employment status STAPRO

(professional status)

PL040

(status in employment)

The same categorisation is used in both EU-LFS and EU-SILC (employee, self-employed and family worker (family member working in a family business)).

Length of time in current employment

STARTIME (time since person started to work) HWUSUAL

(number of hours per week usually worked)

PL211A-PL211L (monthly economic activity)

PL160

(change of job since last year)

EU-LFS: An ‘hours of work’ variable was used where conditions required a minimum number of hours worked. This was required for countries covered by EU-LFS only.

EU-SILC: A variable was created to reflect the number of months in employment from the variables that cover economic activity in each month (PL211A-PL211L), and combine with information on whether the individual had changed job (PL160) where conditions required a minimum length of employment with the same employer. This was required for countries covered by EU-SILC only.

Household relationship HHLINK

(relationship to the reference person in the household)

PB180 (spouse/partner ID)

Variables were used to identify the spouse or partner.

Same-sex relationship SEX SEX Variables were used to determine whether the gender of the reference person was the same as that of their partner in the selected data set. When the partner is

currently taking leave

HOURREAS

(main reason for hours actually worked during the reference week being different from the person’s usual hours)

— HOURREAS=9 represents someone working fewer hours than usual because of maternity or parental leave. This variable was used to capture ineligibility by defining an indicator of when a partner is currently taking leave. This eligibility condition was only required for countries covered by EU-LFS only.

Receipt of unemployment benefits

— PY090G_F

(unemployment benefits)

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Annex

Variables used for contextual analysis

For those in employment, the analysis also ex-plored the extent to which ineligibility varies by age, qualifications, occupation and sector. It is important to note that in conducting an analysis of eligibility across a range of characteristics, cell

(28₎_{https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1978984/6037342/reliab_yearly_from_1998_onwards.html}

sizes may be small. Therefore breakdowns were not presented where the number of observa-tions did not meet a threshold (n < 20) or were flagged as being of limited reliability (20 < n < 50) in case of EU-SILC. For EU-LFS data, the official guidelines on reliability limits were followed (28_). Results were weighted at household level.

Table 6: Variables used for contextual analysis

EU-LFS EU-SILC Notes

Age group AGE

(age of person interviewed)

RX010

(age at the date of the interview)

The EU-SILC RX010 variable is continuous, whereas the EU-LFS AGE variable is split into age bands. RX010 was therefore grouped into the categories used in AGE: 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44 and 45-49 years of age. Education HATLEV1D (level of education) PE040 (highest International Standard Classification of Education level attained)

The EU-SILC PE040 variable uses a more detailed version of the International Standard Classification of Education, these are grouped into the categories used in the EU-LFS HATLEVID variable. This is presented in the following categories: Lower secondary (low), Upper secondary (medium) and Third level (high).

Occupation ISCO1D (occupation)

PL051

(occupation ISCO-08)

Both variables are coded to ISCO-08 classification.

Sector NACE1D (economic activity)

PL111 (NACE (Rev 2))

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